Two hot winters will tell Andrew Strauss whether England are the real deal

Friday 19 August 2011 11:02 BST

Roughed up: Andrew Strauss's helmet was smashed by Ishant Sharma at The Oval yesterday and he's in for a rough ride over the next two winters, too

What a difference three Tests make. On July 25, we were settling down in Lord's, anticipating an unsparing, potentially brutal fight between England and India for the title of best Test side in the world. Zaheer Khan was steaming in from the nursery end. Sachin Tendulkar was drumming his fingers, just waiting to score his 100th international century. England were in for a good going-over.

Four weeks later, at the other end of London, an Oval Test began with the question utterly, definitively decided. With a combination of relentless, greedy batting and near-perfect seam bowling, England have reduced India from cocks of the walk to a defeathered rabble.

Indeed, when Andrew Strauss won the toss yesterday, it seemed that the biggest obstacle in the way of a 4-0 series win was not the opposition, but the weather.

This has been a blitz of a Test series. Four matches have been crammed into less than a month - a punishing schedule which has taken its toll in injuries on both sides, depriving India of their best two bowlers (Zaheer and Harbajhan Singh) and England of their second-best batsman and bowler (Jonathan Trott and Chris Tremlett).

And if this is a blitz, then it has been England who have dropped all the bombs. Victories by 196 runs, 319 runs and an innings and 242 runs? Boom, boom, boom. Were this series a boxing match, the referee would have called it off on medical grounds by now.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. England have been the best in their own backyard, still bursting with the confidence they inhaled during their Ashes win last winter. But the rankings are only a snapshot of form. From now on, the game changes.

To remain on top of the Test pile, Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss will now sit down and work out how to export their game to the alien environment of the subcontinent.

England's Test schedule over the next two-and-a-half years goes like this. They play Pakistan and Sri Lanka this winter and next summer they host West Indies and South Africa for three Tests each.

In autumn 2012 they will defend their world Twenty20 title in Sri Lanka, before touring India over Christmas and New Zealand in Spring 2013.

Then come back-to-back Ashes series, home and away.

It is the next two winters that will show us whether this Test side can get even better.

Playing Pakistan in the UAE and Sri Lanka and India on their own grounds, they are likely to find the tables turned. There will be illness and injury, conditions that do not help their pace attack and hostile crowds gloating over every spot of bad luck.

They will also carry a new burden: expectation. They will be expected not only to survive, but to win; not only to win, but to perform in style. This is, broadly speaking, a new one on England.

With the exception of the 2003 and 2010 series wins in Bangladesh, England have not won on the subcontinent for a decade, when they beat Pakistan 1-0 and Sri Lanka 2-1 over two three-Test series.

These were the great achievements of Nasser Hussain's belligerent captaincy and England relied heavily on Graham Thorpe, then at the peak of his sublime talent.

Both of those victories were smash-and-grab raids. And although England would not mind sneaking victory again, there is now the sense that as supposed world leaders, they must do better than that.

So much of England's future, then, lies in Graeme Swann's right hand. Swann has been quiet in a seamer's summer; but by the winter, he will be leading the attack again. Who will partner him?

England must decide now if Monty Panesar has a future, or whether younger blood is in order.

Two leggies are waiting for their chances: Adil Rashid is being carefully nurtured by England's spin coach, Mushtaq Ahmed, and Durham's Scott Borthwick is also highly rated.

Let's not forget, either, that England have plenty of work to do elsewhere. Their progress in 50-over cricket is as important to their world standing as consolidation in the five-day game.

They're fifth in the world ODI rankings at the moment. It's going to take more than a blitz during the series next month to fix that.

Delia and I could kick it off together

This short quote from Ken Bates's programme notes at Leeds this week made me do a small bolus of sick in my mouth. "The rebuilding of Leeds United is a bit like sex. In an age of instant gratification, Leeds United is having a long, drawn-out affair with plenty of foreplay and slow arousal." No one wants to think about that. Not with Ken Bates. In fact, not with any football chairman. Apart from Delia Smith. Or is that just me?

With Mourinho, it's always pantomime

Is Real Madrid's manager Jose Mourinho "destroying Spanish football", as Barcelona's Gerard Pique suggests? It looks from here like he's turning it into a brilliant panto, rather than a snooty-nosed Catalan cakewalk. His methods may be surly, violent and obnoxious but that only adds to the excitement every time El Clasico comes around. As any fan of wrestling will tell you, sport needs heels as well as faces. Remove one and you diminish the importance of the other. Viva the beast!

Such a sad affair for unfortunate Henson

The intensity of modern rugby means that regular injuries are a certainty. But to suffer one just weeks before the start of a World Cup is cruel. Thoughts, therefore, are with Danny Care and Matthew Rees, certain starters now out of England's and Wales's squads with toe and neck injuries respectively. The same applies to Gavin 'The Bachelor' Henson, who may be an utter noodle but has had worse luck with World Cup injuries than anyone.

Much rather Tom than Arthur Daley

Congratulations to Olympic diver Tom Daley, who learned yesterday that he had scored an A*, an A and a B in his A-levels. He has combined academic commitment with a 35-hour a week training schedule and has been rewarded. There's a tendency in exam results weeks for sportsmen and media gonks to tell the world that it's okay: they passed no exams and still got ahead in life. I'd rather my daughter looked to Daley for inspiration. (But then, I'm a nerd.)